This girl panted for a larger life than she was enjoying. She wanted to score, but being only a woman she was never allowed an innings. She knew by fair trial that she had the legs of any young brave in her tribe; that she was a far better climber than most, and could handle a man's weapons as well as any lad of her age. Yet, when there was anything to be done with axe or assegai it was their call, while she must be stitching a kaross or gathering sticks! The unfairness of it!
And there had been no war in their country for some years, nor any chance for her to prove her capacity and courage in emergency.
Here was her chance; here, just beneath her feet. 'Twas now or never, she would kill this woman-hunter and take his scalp back to camp. It would be a glorious feat, the women would be jealous, no doubt, and so might the younger men, but someone would make a song about it, and her name would be remembered. That would be something that would comfort her when after a few brief years of overwork and child-bearing she was no longer supple and swift, and had shrivelled into a blear-eyed, haggard old squaw of thirty-five, bullied and bidden about by her own sons.
And it was really quite easy. As the villain sate there exactly below her he was so utterly in her hand. One smashing down-cast and her hatchet would be in his brain, and—well, it would spoil the scalp!
Was there no other way? She would peep again. He had not changed his position. From signs she could see that he had not changed it for days. His left foot fell inwards unpleasantly; it was broken above the ankle.
The man was starving to death. Water he did not want for, a trickle oozed near him.
Then Dêh-Yān understood why the whortleberries upon that cliff-face had ripened untouched.
Then the Alternative occurred to her.
The Custom of the Country considered it sound practice that an enemy taken alive should be tortured before being eaten. The girl knew this as a matter of course, just as a modern duchess knows that a garotter is whipped and a murderer hanged by the neck, nor is broken of her sleep by the knowledge. Dêh-Yān had listened with horrified interest to the talk of old women who professed to have watched the process out, or nearly out. Immemorial Custom sanctioned a woman's presence at the salutary spectacle. The girl was no more responsible for the usages and customs of her people than a St Louis belle is responsible for lynching.
So, there remained the Alternative, a dreadfully thrilling catch-you-by-the-throat alternative, of giving this wife-hunter over to the tribe.